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[Footkerchief]

Toady is currently implementing a fancy new system for spattering/coating creatures, items and terrain with arbitrary materials.  This is cool, but creatures probably still won't get spattered with things as often as they should.  Right now there are just four main things that your average dwarf gets spattered with:

• Blood -- their own, or somebody else's
• Vomit from throwing up all over themselves
• Mud from crawling around like a goddamn animal
• Water from rainstorms and irrigation mishaps

Yes, they still manage to get pretty filthy, but think about what they do.  They smash rocks and stoke furnaces and yank grubby mushrooms out of the mud.  Miners and other stoneworkers should be coated in rock dust.  Furnace operators should look like Reconstruction-era minstrels.  Farmers should have bits of plump helmet under their fingernails.  Cooks should get splattered with grease.  Millers and woodworkers should get dusted with flour and sawdust, respectively.  Maybe woodworkers could get little splinters too, although that's not really a spatter.

Now throw in contact poisons, which are also slated for the next release.  Suddenly, your industry for making cinnabar mugs or realgar chairs or whatever will have appropriate and hilarious consequences.  Clouds of dust, mist, or vapor, from rocks or whatever else, could also function as inhaled poisons (another feature of the upcoming release).

Incompetent stoneworkers could be more likely to generate dust.  Clumsy brewers, dyers and milkers could spill small amounts of liquid on themselves and the floor.

This is all just scratching the surface, so please contribute!

[ZeroGravitas]

As I stated in the other thread, some of the stuff you are referring to (mercury poisoning from cinnabar) would take an extremely long time to kill anyone or even manifest symptoms. It wouldn't interesting or hilarious, it would just result in dwarves working slower and slower until they died. This isn't a compelling or even remotely interesting topic for a fantasy world simulator.

To be fair, you'd also have to do model mitigating effects, like the level of vitamin C or chelating agents in the dwarf's food and environment. This is just an entire can of worms that should have a very low priority.

[Footkerchief]

Heavy metal poisoning was just an example meant to illustrate how job-related spatters could interact with other game systems, e.g. poisoning.  If you want a more direct example, let's suppose that gnomeblight becomes a lethal contact poison, a kind of death salve, to which only kobolds are immune.  A dwarf would have to be an expert thresher to handle it safely -- a novice might fumble and poison himself.

Poisoning effects may seem like a can of worms to you, but Toady will be opening that can quite soon anyway.

[Mel_Vixen]

Pitchblend, Arsen (Orthoclase) or Phosphor also are pretty Nasty. Apart from that i cann see "cosmetical" spatters like rouge, camouflage and stuff in the devs (bloats iirc).

Burdocs, pollen, any kind of Slime (Eels or Snails), spit (f.e. Dog), Poison, Hair, feathers, straw, pus, food, drinks, ash, soil and i am sure much more are possible. 

I did once sit in an train that did run over an herd of sheep. The train got some really interresting spatters of entrails, skin, wool, blood, brain and dung.

[bjlong]

Looks like there should be two states for "splattering": one for dust and one for liquids. Maybe we can eventually get gasses into the game, but let's not hold our collective breaths of "Open Space."

On the subject of dust: Shouldn't *any* dust getting into the lungs count as a type of poison? This could be represented a lot like miasma is now--down to an unhappy thought from walking through it. Well, maybe children would "play" by running through clouds of flour dust--I know I liked running through clouds of smoke.

[Mel_Vixen]

Beware the Flourdust. That stuff has the tendency to go boom upon the tinyest spark.

And gases would be awesome, if that goes in somehow i would burn sulfur where ever i can.

[Kanddak]

As I stated in the other thread, some of the stuff you are referring to (mercury poisoning from cinnabar) would take an extremely long time to kill anyone or even manifest symptoms. It wouldn't interesting or hilarious, it would just result in dwarves working slower and slower until they died. This isn't a compelling or even remotely interesting topic for a fantasy world simulator.

Sure, chronic exposure to small amounts of something might take a while to kill you, but that doesn't mean someone couldn't have acute poisoning and die more quickly. Suppose you eat something spattered with realgar dust.

And anyway, who said anything about dwarves working slower and slower until they die?
I propose that slowly poisoning goblins and elves to a terrible death is definitely compelling and interesting.

It would also be fun to fill the fort with a toxic dust at a concentration that would be lethal to cats but not dwarves. Or at least produce hideous, deformed kittens.

I'm also looking forward to being able to make execution chambers that function by smoke inhalation, and use lye in military applications or for miasma-free remains disposal.
Clumsy lye makers and soapers should end up with chemical burns.

[G-Flex]

Mercury poisoning can be extremely bad. It doesn't necessarily take decades, especially when you're working with stuff like cinnabar and inhaling the vapor day after day after day.

Besides, why SHOULDN'T long-term health effects be represented, if they're profound enough? Lead poisoning can take a while, sure, but it would be interesting if a fortress had problems after using lead barrels for everything after 10-30 years.

[ZeroGravitas]

Mercury poisoning can be extremely bad. It doesn't necessarily take decades, especially when you're working with stuff like cinnabar and inhaling the vapor day after day after day.

Besides, why SHOULDN'T long-term health effects be represented, if they're profound enough? Lead poisoning can take a while, sure, but it would be interesting if a fortress had problems after using lead barrels for everything after 10-30 years.

I never said it shouldn't be. I just said it should be a low priority.

As someone said to me, DF is about making a "compelling fantasy world". Accurately modeling pollution does not seem like an important part of that.

[Sunday]

How 'bout lye-makers (and soap makers, perhaps) getting chemical burns?

Hey, perhaps only tangential to this topic, but I think it would be neat to have some dead-body/boneyard uses for lye.  Just like in the middle ages!

[bjlong]

^^^ Good point. Tanners weren't very well respected because their profession required very caustic chemicals which would end up disfiguring them--maybe that could be modeled in game?

[BonSequitur]

Actually, before we model that we should model the fact that tanning is an entirely disgusting process that involves animal urine and ammonia, and therefore has a much, much worse smell than "mere" miasma.

[Footkerchief]

I never said it shouldn't be. I just said it should be a low priority.

As someone said to me, DF is about making a "compelling fantasy world". Accurately modeling pollution does not seem like an important part of that.

Priority is probably moot here though, since I'm pretty sure long-term poisoning effects will come for free with short-term effects, which are definitely going in.  Anyway, I agree that short-term effects are more interesting, so let's not get hung up on the heavy metals thing.

How 'bout lye-makers (and soap makers, perhaps) getting chemical burns?

Hey, perhaps only tangential to this topic, but I think it would be neat to have some dead-body/boneyard uses for lye.  Just like in the middle ages!

Middle ages?  Ha.

But yeah, the hazards of lye should get a lot more respect in DF. 

Actually, before we model that we should model the fact that tanning is an entirely disgusting process that involves animal urine and ammonia, and therefore has a much, much worse smell than "mere" miasma.

Yeah.  Not only should tanneries act as little miasma factories, maybe tanners who get the "chemicals" on themselves should also reek.  Then they go to the meeting hall and can't make any friends, etc.

[Felblood]

If it slows the spread of the cancer known as dwarven social circles, I'm in favor. 

Gloves and other assorted clothing items should be much more important to anyone who works with any kind of contact poison. Deciding how long term you want to deal with workplace chemical hazards is, I think, largely a matter of taste.

Slow, insidious, horrible death and disfigurement is compelling, just not in the way you're thinking. Losing should be more fun.

I have some deer entrails spattered on my windshield. There's really no word for it, other than spattered. Who says a critical hit shouldn't rupture your abdomen and split your skull in half in one go. Beast is a mess.

[Athisus]

Might be a bit gruesome, but cutting open someone's stomach could cause acid splattering. That would be fun to watch.